A new year means a new season of anime for fans to add to their weekly rotation or add to their ever-growing pile of backlog series they swear they’ll catch up on any day now. While 2025 will see a streaming battle between de facto anime juggernaut Crunchyroll and rising star Netflix, the former has recently released anime. Jujutsu Kaisen again Attack on Titan Studio Mappa threw anime fans for a loop with its first episode.
Before its release, Zenshua clever play on the Japanese expression for “whole collection” or “complete works,” piqued the interest of anime fans with its marketing premise about the process of producing anime from old cartoons. While this isn’t the first time anime has pulled back the curtain and done some creative work (see Keep Your Hands Eizouken, Green Timeagain Boot camp), Zenshu it had people’s curiosity because it was a Mappa anime. As mentioned before, Mappa is widely regarded as an anime studio to watch, and many of its sheets include some of the most critically-acclaimed shonin anime. It’s also a studio that has had an equal amount of controversy online over repeated incidents of an employee allegedly getting the highly regarded anime out the door. Mappa making an anime about the challenges of the animation process is sure to be interesting regardless. However, ZenshuThe first episode confused fans during its premiere, revealing that it is an isekai anime.
Isekai is a fantasy genre of anime that has quickly become an easy bag for anime fans because of how oversaturated the medium has become over the past decade. Although there are prominent ones in the shows like Re: Zero again Useless Reincarnationisekai shows are often based on fictional power anime about social welfare in the everyday world who get a second chance to live in a fictional world with the power of God. And while there’s nothing wrong with looking at something as stimulating to the brain as a frosted sugar cookie, fans weren’t expecting Mappa to take the sekai route with it. Zenshu. However, Mappa finds something new in its isekai-style approach as well Zenshu the first episode.
He just hurt the feelings of every sekai fan😠pic.twitter.com/SDasgvZEN3
– Brandon Varnell (@BrandonBVarnell) January 6, 2025
Zenshu follows a woman named Natsuko Hirose who quickly goes from being an animator fresh out of high school to the creator of a generation-defining anime. His success inspires him to lead a romantic comedy animated film in the same vein as director Makoto Shinkai. Your name or Mamoru Hosoda’s The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. However, Natsuko has trouble grasping the concept, having never experienced the joy of first love. He doesn’t help his situation by recreating important animations and storyboards designed by his assistants, and he insists on letting his dirty hair grow out of control until the job is done. After an ego scroll in doom on social media, Natsuko learns that the director behind the critical role (and the anime that made her fall in love with the craft) has passed away. It is here that Natsuko accidentally chokes on her food, dies, and enters the dream world of said anime.
Natsuko quickly deduces that she’s been sekai’d and complains that this phenomenon only happens to the unemployed before she discovers that she can redraw every scene of the tragic tale to save its heroes from certain destruction. This power is reflected in his magic nail bar, which acts as a purple crayon in the middle Harold and the Red Crayon (or a piece of chalk from Nickelodeon ChalkZone cool kids). His first act has him drawing a monstrous kaiju with genga and settei production markers that animate with every movement of his body; it gets a lot of good points for being a one-to-one reference Neon Genesis EvangelionHideaki Anno’s animated adaptation of Hayao Miyazaki’s 1984 Studio Ghibli fantasy film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
.
Nausicaa / Zenshu ep 1.
A special thought by Hideaki Anno 🥲 pic.twitter.com/DzD4xeeFp5– Catsuka (@catsuka) January 7, 2025
Despite isekai being a well-trodden genre of anime, ZenshuThe first episode strikes a balance as one of the most captivating original anime the industry has produced in years. Its comic elements take a passion from the genre while using its subtle power to analyze myth and reality in a way that is tailored for refreshing storytelling. Although it is too early to tell Zenshu what will happen to the animators Boot camp again Episode Fan Book was the anime community last year, it certainly leaves a good first impression that you will have the passion to deliver attractive isekai while providing meta-text information on the animation process from one of the industry’s leading studios.
New episodes of Zenshu premieres Sunday on Crunchyroll.
Looking for more io9 news? Check out when you can expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe in film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.